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There is always something propelling you through the water. The arms will be propulsive while the legs recover and the legs propel while the hands recover. When performing breaststroke, there is always a slight pause between the arm motions and the leg motions. The more advanced you become at breaststroke, the smaller the pause becomes, however that pause is always there.

The pulling motion should remain within your body, as you pull your arms in while you breathe. This motion should look like clockwork, quite literally. Like the hands on a clock, your arms will begin at the 12, which will then pull towards the 9 and the 3, down to the 6, and finally shooting themselves back towards the 12.

However, you must remember that these hands need to remain within your body, pulling too wide will lead to lost momentum, slowing us down and tiring us. As we pull our arms back, we swiftly pull our heads out to take a breath, and as we are returning our arms back to the 12 position, we lower our heads again back into the water. This leads us to our kicking portion.

Moments within getting our arms back to the 12 position and getting our heads into water, we will be whipping our legs around with a lot of power, pushing ourselves forward.

The whip must remain within the water, as often we tend to raise our knees up, which allow a splash to occur. Just like the arms, if our feet whip outside of the water, we will lose our momentum and tire ourselves down. A good tip is to lower the knees instead, allowing ourselves to get the full motion while keeping ourselves in the water.

As well, remember to put the power on the actual whip component, instead of putting the power into dropping the knees into position as this is a common error. Finally, remember to give yourself a second or two to glide, giving yourself the maximum amount of time to push forward before you begin to slow down and need to whip again.

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Our Aqua Speed back crawl #TipTuesday of the week:Lead with your thumb as your arm comes out of the water.

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday we’re going to discuss back crawl! Our focus is going to be on the positioning of our hands as they exit the water. A common beginner mistake is to have the hands lay flat as they exit and enter the water. Due to the resistance upon exiting the water, and impact when entering the water, keeping the hands flat (horizontal) can cause the swimmer pain. As well as create drag, which slows the swimmer down.

To eliminate the pain and increase our speed it is important to monitor and maintain how our hand exits and enters the water. The swimmer wants to lead with your thumb as your arm comes out of the water. The arm should be lifted out by the movement of the shoulders – not the other way round. By keeping the thumb up and pointed towards the ceiling we reduce the amount of water resistance upon exiting the water during our backward rotation of the arms.

Now as you may know, the shoulder can only rotate the arm backwards to a certain point with the thumb pointed towards the ceiling. As we re-enter the water the swimmer will face the palms outwards away from the body and let the pinky finger enter. Again, by doing this the swimmer minimizes resistance and drag by making the entry surface of the water smaller.

When we enter the water with a flat hand, the surface area the swimmer must push through is larger. Therefore the swimmer will need to work much harder against the force of the water. Swimming is all about efficiency and effective movement for our desired outcome. Which in the case of back crawl is to move quickly while maintaining our body position on our back. As you progress through the levels mastery of this stroke can take you to many competitions. Those who are the very best at this skill can compete for national and even olympic standing!

It is important to be comfortable without them. However, as we progress goggles are a great piece of swim equipment to help enhance our swimming. How do goggles enhance our swimming? Firstly it will allow the swimmer to see clearly underwater. This is important for many different skills: from “bobs,” also known as submersion in our preschool levels, to surface dives and rescue drills in our swimmer and bronze levels.

It is also helpful during strokes performed on your front (or stomach). From breaststroke to butterfly, all strokes require the swimmer to swim in a straight line. Being able to focus our sight under the water at the wall ahead will allow the swimmer to travel forward without deviating into a wall or lane rope.

When choosing this piece of swim equipment you want to ensure that there is good suction around the eyes without the use of the strap. Press the goggles to the eyes and hold for about 5 seconds then release your hands. If the goggles are still stuck and suctioned around your eyes these are the pair for you.

Another thing to keep in mind when selecting a pair of goggles is the swimmer’s face shape. Everyone has a different face shape, some of us have bigger eyes than others, or our eyes are closer or further apart. Some of us need the lip of the goggle to sit differently over top the cheekbones. You want to pick the right goggle shape for your face. It is easy to pick up the pair everyone already owns. However that style might not be the best choice for the swimmer. Always try them on and get what works for your face shape. A great brand I like is called Aqua Sphere, as they have a variety of shapes, they suction well, and they are a bit softer around the eyes. For those of you who like to yank the straps very snug around your heads, these are kinder to your face.

Another helpful Swimming Tip Tuesday tip for you swimmers who wear glasses, prescription goggles exist! They are typically a negative prescription, and are the same prescription for both sides of the goggle. An example would be -5.00 or -3.50, they increase or decrease by half.

Well that’s it for this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday! For more tips and tricks for success join us next week, or register and train with one of our brilliant swim coaches!

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday we’re going to discuss backstroke and a unique aspect of our body positioning. Often you will hear your instructors refer to the streamline position. What this entails is that the body moves through the water with the least resistance. From the tip of the hands to the tip of the toes, the swimmer’s body lays flat as it glides across the water. Now, contrary to our understanding of the streamline body position, laying flat on the water does not require one to be perfectly horizontal to the water. As a matter of fact many strokes will cause the body to slope slightly.

When performing any stroke, the goal is to minimize drag. To do this the swimmer should avoid dramatic bending at the hips, neck, and knees. When we bend at the joint we create pockets for the water to get trapped in and push the body down. This ultimately slows the swimmer down.

When performing backstroke slight bending is necessary, due to the nature of the stroke. During backstroke the body will slope slightly from the hips to the toes. You’ll notice that this causes the head and arms to be slightly higher in the water than the legs and toes. By slightly sloping the body, and the slight difference in height between the hands, head and toes, the swimmer breaks streamline position less dramatically as they swing the arms to generate power.

Furthermore, with the hips slightly sloped down, we can now capitalize on the flutter kick. The legs will remain underneath the surface of the water, as to not break our streamline position and reduce the effects of drag.

By making this adjustment with our body position the swimmer can increase the speed and precision of the stroke.

Want to learn more? Sign up on our website with one of our brilliant swim instructors! We’ll see you next Swimming Tip Tuesday for another fun tip on how to perfect those strokes! Happy Swimming!

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday we’re going to be discussing the important of where to breathe when performing front crawl!

Now I know some of you are thinking, breathing, bah! How hard could this possibly be! However, fine tuning our strokes is not about making a skill more

The bow wave forming in front of a moving yacht. Swimmers form a similar bow wave during front crawl.

difficult. Actually, it’s quite the opposite. We change the way we do things to make the overall stroke easier on the swimmer. Working against the water is difficult, and in order to make it across the pool with ease, instructors like myself break down strokes so they can be mastered and performed well.

What many swimmers do, both new and experienced alike is that we create something called a bow wave. What on earth is a bow wave? A bow wave is the wave that forms at the bow of a ship when it moves through the water. As the bow wave spreads out, it defines the outer limits of a ship’s wake. Well, just like a ship’s bow wave, a bow wave is the shape the swimmer makes as they point the elbow up and as they reach forward during front crawl (check out the image below)!

As we create this shape, the swimmer does not need to lift the head or focus on dropping the shoulder. The creation of the shape includes the action of a slight shoulder roll and head tilt. This is important because it provides the swimmer with the perfect window to breathe. That window is the trough.

The bottom of your bow wave is the trough. Breathe into the trough for maximum efficiency.

A common mistake occurs when we are blissfully unaware of the bow wave. The swimmer trying to find a window to breathe will lift their head causing them to sink and put extra effort into returning back to the surface. This head lift as instead of tilt also causes the swimmer to over-rotate head and shoulder.

Both actions push the swimmer down into the water, making it harder to breathe, and harder to scale the length of the pool. Remembering to breathe into the trough (shape), will allow the swimmer to smoothly transition from exhaling to inhaling as they complete the stroke from one of the pool to the other.

Want to learn more? Sign up on our website for personalized training with one of our instructors. Hope to see you at Aqua Fun Academy, until stay tuned for our next Swimming Tip Tuesday!

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday, we’re going to discuss diving, the types of splashes that come from entering the water and why it’s important to maintain a streamlined body position when entering the water.

Think of your first entry into water, slipping into the water from a ledge is not always the most graceful action often resulting in some splash back. Which for young ones, or those of us who prefer not to get our face wet can be an adverse experience. However it is one of the easiest ways to enter the water without creating an undesired amount of splash.

As we progress in our swimming abilities one will learn to jump into water, roll into water, and cannon ball into the water. All of these moves create a large amount of splash. Though at this point in our swimming lives, water in the face is the least of our problems. So why mention the splash back? It comes back to body positioning. Objects that are streamline cut and move with the water, creating a fairly uniform flow. However when an object disrupts the flow of water we create splash.

The greater the surface area the object takes up, the larger the disruption, and the greater the splash. Fun tip: if you want a larger radius of splash spread the body away from your core to hit a greater amount of water. If you want to create a splash with height, do a cannon ball, keeping the body tucked in.

When diving we want to cause the least amount of disruption to the water, by maintaining a tight body position. Hands pressed firmly together, legs held firmly together, and toes pointed back. We create a small area to enter the water reducing the amount of splash back. The better we maintain our body position, especially of our feet since those are the last part to enter the water, we can enter the water seamlessly.

This is important for the following reasons:

Requires less effort to resurface;

Easier to attain distance and depth;

Competition judges at the national and Olympic level judge divers based on this tiny piece of criteria.

For more on diving, and other useful swimming tips, stay tuned for our next Swimming Tip Tuesday!

Breaststroke is one of the more complex skills one can learn. To properly execute breaststroke, it requires the brain to coordinate multiple motor functions, as a result of its complexity. This promotes brain health, and strengthens neural pathways. To demonstrate the complexity of breaststroke, we will compare it to a stroke like front crawl. The legs involved in front crawl are a quick and repetitive motion, requiring minimal engagement from the lower leg. This simple motion is coupled with a more complex arm movement. This arm movement is where intermediate swimmers engage the majority of their focus.

In contrast, during breaststroke both arm and leg movements require high levels of focus, and coordination. For example, prior to the execution of the whip, the arms begin a sequence of two main movements. As the arms move into their third main movement, the execution of the whip is completed.

Swimming Tip Tuesday: An example of a swimmer entering the glide phase.

It is at this point that the body is in a full glide position. Many beginners have difficulty micromanaging these movements in proper succession. As a result, they never enter the glide phase. If the swimmer never enters the glide phase, they lose overall forward propulsion, and use too much energy to move a short distance. It is during the glide phase that we achieve our highest forward momentum.

A common beginner mistake is to put too many whips in succession without a proper glide phase. The reason this is not a desired movement is because the water acts as a vacuum and either leaves the swimmer in a relatively stationary position, or pulls them in the backward direction. If this continues, the swimmer’s body will eventually sink. This is due to the large break in streamlined body position, as well as swimmer fatigue. Swimmer fatigue often happens due to the lack of efficiency in a stroke, in this case by putting too many whips in succession.

For all these reasons it is important to enter the glide position and wait until the body starts to slow down or decelerate. It is at this point that we can generate a large amount of forward propulsion, without fighting water resistance. This water resistance is generated by the aftermath of our previous whip.

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday we will discuss front crawl. Specifically focusing on arm recovery and shoulder placement.

When you as a swimmer begin to learn front crawl, you have been introduced to the following skills:

Floating

Rhythmic Breathing

Front Glide

Side Glide

Flutter kick

Front crawl takes these skills and combines them, allowing the swimmer to achieve greater distances, swim more efficiently, and with greater strength. Front Crawl (also known as freestyle) is a highly energy efficient stroke when performed at a high level of proficiency.

To begin to make this stroke our own, we must focus on the mechanics of the combination “front-to-side-glide”.

To turn onto our side, the swimmer must first keep their kick consistent. Establishing a rhythm when kicking will keep the swimmer close to the top of the water.

Secondly, the swimmer should roll the body to the side, instead of turning just the head, a slight roll turning the hips and shoulder.

For the 3rd step we have a Pro Tip: Your shoulder should come out of the water as your arm exits while the other begins the propulsive phase under the water. This should happen as you slightly roll to breathe.

When executed correctly, the swimmer will reduce drag by maintaining their streamline body position. The swimmer will also increase forward propulsion as our hand finds the catch.

Definitions:

Drag: In swimming “drag” is used to explain the force or resistance experienced by a swimmer by working against the water, or out of a streamlined position.

Catch: In swimming “catch” is used to finding the assisting flow of water to increase propulsion. In other words where the water is moving in large volumes.

Rhythmic Breathing: In swimming this means to blow bubbles and exhale in a consistent pattern or rhythm.

Well that’s a wrap for this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday! Until next week!

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday we’re going to focus on how to maximize our forward propulsion by looking at the differences in how we kick our feet.

The basis of butterfly is dolphin kick, it is from this movement that the swimmer generates most of their forward momentum. When beginners are learning this stroke, some instructors will put emphasis on splash to differentiate between the two different types of kicks.

Dolphin kick is a wave motion generated from the hips. The swimmer will do the following sequence when performing the kick.

1-push the hips down towards the pool floor.

1a-bend at the knees.

1b- keep the feet close to the top of the water.

This is the initial ‘S’ or ‘wave’ motion. Then the swimmer will…

2- push the bum up towards to the top of the water.

2a-straighten the knees.

2b push the feet down towards the pool floor.

This is the second wave, this motion will become seamless with practice.

As the swimmer performs 2b (pushing the feet down towards the pool floor) they will execute that push gently the first time, tapping the water and hard the second time, forcing the water down beneath them. On the second kick, the swimmer engages the arms and adds to the momentum.

We’ve spoken about the mechanics but how do we maximize this movement? The answer is to minimize the amount of splash we create in the kick.

As I have emphasized in the past to avoid drag we want to maintain a streamlined body position. Remaining streamlined allows for the water to flow around the body without creating drag and assisting with the swimmers’ forward momentum.

In the case of Butterfly we want to maintain the motion of water around us to avoid drag. Due to the wave like motion of this stroke it is in the swimmer’s best interest to minimize disruptions to the flow of water.

When we create splashes, we change the movement of the water around the swimmer. Due to the change in direction of the water’s movement, the swimmer needs to work against these other currents being created by large splashes.

As a result it important for swimmers to practice the execution of this kick, with great power and a small amount of splash.

Keep practicing, and we’ll see you next time for Swimming Tip Tuesday!

On this week’s Swimming Tip Tuesday, we’re going to discuss performance curves in regards to practicing our strokes and ways in which we can combat fatigue.

What is a performance curve? A performance curve measures how effectively we practice over a period of time. This varies from person to person, though there are some general rules. For example if one is reading a long article in preparation for an exam it takes approximately thirty minutes of reading for the mind to optimally focus on the material. In regards to physical activity, our level of fatigue is one of the factors determining optimal performance.

There are ways to work around fatigue when practicing. One of those ways is to mix up which muscle groups we use throughout our practice session. If you feel your stroke technique dropping for one stroke, change to another stroke. Different muscle groups are used in different strokes. Due to this swimmers can provide an opportunity for your other muscles to recover from some fatigue.

Another way to combat fatigue is to incorporate stroke alternatives. These alternatives can come from our shallow or deep-water aquatic fitness programs. Below are some alternatives that assist in overall muscle development.

Swimming Tip Tuesday: A person performing water running with assistance of a buoyancy belt.

Water running/jogging

Cross Country ski

Pendulum

V or L sit

Jax / oppositional Jax

Bolded exercises are to be done with the aid of a buoyancy belt!!

The eventual onset of fatigue is unavoidable, to help with swimmer recovery remember to also include light exercise or rest period throughout your programs.

To keep your swimming stamina high prior to practice check out the following tips below: